Professional Documents
Culture Documents
KUNDALINI
AN OCCULT
EXPERIENCE
by
G. S. ARUNDALE
1938
CONTENTS
EXPLANATION
This book is emphatically not a guide to the awakening of Kundalini.
On the other hand, there is an aura encircling all rightful
experiments and experiences, which can be conveyed even through
the medium of print. This aura not only clears the outlook of the
earnest student of life, but also helps to raise his consciousness to
the more rarefied levels where the Eternal dwells less veiled by the
shadows of time.
Chapter 1
THE NATURE OF KUNDALINI
Glimpses of Kundalini in action are vouchsafed the student who is
content to watch and not to grasp. Let the descriptions be read
lightly, not with the mind but with the intuition. Thus, however
fantastic they may seem, yet the reader will perceive that they are
fantastic not because they are untrue but because they are too true.
Chapter 2
inclined to tell some of one's friends, if they ask, quite frankly what
they need.
Chapter 8
CENTRES AND FUNCTIONS OF KUNDALINI
It seems as if Kundalini can be sent forth from any centre though
preferably from the solar plexus centre or from the centre between
the eyebrows. We thus begin to realize that the great centres of the
body are the main distributors of force. It is not a matter of eyes or
hands or feet, but of centres.
Chapter 9
THE INDIVIDUALITY OF KUNDALINI
In some mysterious way Kundalini remains for ever individual to its
recipient, however much it may always be inseparable from the
Universal Fire whence it issues forth. In some mysterious way it
partakes of the nature of the Permanent Atom, cannot disintegrate,
and forms the eternal Fire of the evolving individuality.
Chapter 10
THE MUSIC OF KUNDALINI
Kundalini is music as well as colour. It is a throbbing majesty of
sound and a rainbow of colour, Kundalini sings with the voice of all
that lives. In the singing is heard the voice of the Unity of Life, and
in the colours is felt the Warmth of Life.
Chapter 11
ACCOUNT OF AN EXPERIENCE
EXPLANATION
Let us first be flotsam of the depths, floating peacefully and safely on their
calm and sheltering surfaces, ere we seek to penetrate their profundities
against their righteously rebellious shatterings, designed not to protest but
to test worthiness to seek. Let us know them face to face in peace, before
we plunge into the storms and cataclysms which make us one with them.
I hope that a perusal of this little book will at least cause, in each
understanding reader, an adjustment of his individual consciousness to a
larger consciousness of which it is a part. Such adjustment should be in the
nature of an expansion, a sense of happy stretching, of exhilaration, of a
joyous ascent into the mountains of his being, of an exploration of himself
such as he has probably not so far undertaken.
Finally, I apologize for all redundancies and obscure wordings. The
redundancies were inevitable, since the experience sometimes repeated
itself, and I have thought it better to leave the experience in its original form
of translation into outer world language. The obscure wordings result from
the endeavour to express that which to the student was inexpressible. These
obscure wordings I have also left untouched.
G. S. A.
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
THE UNIVERSE-KUNDALINI
AND CENTRES
HE last sentence in the foregoing chapter brings us at once to the
startling opening which heralded these various experiences and
experiments.
In the first flash of intuitional and possibly higher expansion, the subject of
the experiences became engulfed in a sense of the relationship between the
microcosm and the macrocosm. He is, for the time, carried off his feet. His
consciousness flashes outwards to what seems to be the furthest confines of
space, and he becomes absorbed in the glorious and perfect certainty-giving
fact of the intimate unity of his own consciousness, not only with the
universal consciousness, in so far as the word " universal " may at all be
rightly used when there seems to be a universal beyond the infinite, but also
with specific parts of the universal consciousness. His own individual
consciousness is a piece of mosaic in the pattern of evolving life, and there
are other pieces seemingly closely linked to his as being of the same general
rate of vibration, of the same colour. Where are there mosaics similar in
general principle to his ? And at once, as in response, vibrations seem to
come from afar and from a very precise afar not here to be more defined.
There is clearly an immense Cosmic significance of the twin-soul theory,
might I not say the multiple-soul theory, by no means within the compass of
this tiny little world of ours. And let it be said at once that the commonplace
twin-soul idea current in certain phases of modern thought is a very poor
caricature of a marvellous reality. This very earth has its twin-star, and it
becomes clear at once that the duality of life is no less fundamental than its
unity, or than its trinity. But further speculation is denied. It will not be
profitable at this stage.
In the light of this special intuition the speculation also arises, as the student
is carried still further off his feet, though not so wildly that there is no
substance in his shadows, as to the relation between the great occult Rites
of the Fire on this earth, and the Universe-Kundalini of which our Lord the
Sun is the heart as well as the body. For us, the Sun is Kundalini in excelsis,
in which we live and move and have our being. Each individual Kundalini in
whatever kingdom of nature, in whatever substance great or small in
whatever world, is part of the Sun-Kundalini. And, strange as it may seem,
these tiny Kundalini streams partake of the omniscience, omnipotence,
omnipresence, of their sublime Progenitor. Thus may we say that all life,
each one of us, is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, in the becoming.
There is a most intimate connection between the Fire of our Lord the Sun
and the universe-life which He has set afire.
It becomes clear at once that Kundalini, howsoever it may appear, is mighty
and torrential, here mighty and torrential in potentiality only, there stirring
and awakening, elsewhere in resistless movement, burning all before it.
Is there a Kundalini chain linking the constituent elements of our own solar
system, and another chain linking the various solar systems ? Surely so, and
speculation is no less interesting as to the nature of the centres of a solar
system and on their vivification by Cosmic Kundalini. The Earth has its
centres whirling wheels of fiery energyand it would appear that one of
the functions of some of the Lords of Evolution is the regulation of
distribution and intensity of Kundalini. This is a reason why even Their work
has been described as hazardous, like the work of those who bring
ammunition to the front line trenches in time of war. They might in some
way, perhaps, be consumed with the very Force They wield, though it may
be supposed that in Their case this could not happen.
As a preliminary to the deeper understanding of this tremendous vista, it
would be necessary to learn how Kundalini is aroused and directed to the
various centres of the vehicles of a human being, not merely for a general
vivification of their life, but also, as may be required, for their individual
vivification to certain definite ends. For example, a lecture has to be
delivered, an audience or congregation has to be influenced. Watching the
process at work, it seemed as if it automatically begins by the general
stimulation of Kundalini along, and up and down, the spine, so that there
comes about a distinct glow. This happens to a microscopic extent with all
who lecture, or who, in one or another of a number of ways, seek to
influence for good their fellow-men. But where there is training the glow
expands into a fire. And further results can be obtained if special vivification
takes place in the heart, throat and along the line between the middle of the
head and the centre of the eyebrows. This vivification proceeds through the
solar plexus, a fact which partly accounts for the feeling of sickness some
people experience before lecturing or before some other unusual strain,
together with other physical symptoms. In special cases, such feelings
always occur, marking the purification of the vehicles in order to facilitate the
down-pouring of higher, and also of superhuman, Kundalini.
This does not mean that in most of these people Kundalini is actually
aroused, but that there is in them a concentration, an intensification, of the
universal Kundalini Fire, with the result that their nerves and other channels
have more to carry than the Fire-load to which they are normally
accustomed. However localized Kundalini may be from one point of view,
from another it is universal omnipresent. In some cases, however, the
concentration of the Fire is predominantly local. It is a case of spontaneous
combustion, but the same effects are noticeable.
It is clear that nicotine and alcohol definitely act in some way upon
Kundalini, the former interposing a barrier between the general force of
Kundalini and its operation in the various vehicles of the individual
concerned, while the other seems to act as a direct stimulant, stirring the
Force in wrong directions, or in some way wrongly intensifying it, and in any
case doing these things in connection with an individual far from ready for
Fire-development. All narcotics, drugs, stimulants, clog the system and
interpose a deadening miasma between the individual and all larger
consciousness.
But to return to the stimulation of Kundalini for special purposes, the spinal
glow seems to be the first phenomenon, and this is intensified by external
Chapter 3
physical body associated with particular parts of the body are, in the case of
the inner bodies, more universal. To a certain extent, perhaps, we may
speak of localization in regard to the inner bodies, but it is more or less the
whole of the astral body that feels, that receives impressions, that
communicates. It is the same with the mental body. The whole of it thinks.
Now with the physical body, while feeling is distributed throughout, and
while special centres are affected by feelings and sensations of an unusual
kind, the brain acts as the principal channel of communication between the
physical and astral bodies. Numb the brain, numb the nerves which
communicate with the brain, and feeling disappears, so far as the waking
consciousness is concerned, though its effects may remain, as witness the
shock after an operation which, by reason of an anaesthetic, has been
temporarily painless.
Similarly, it is the brain which is the main channel between the physical body
and the mental body. I feel sure that the mental body impresses itself in
some measure upon all parts of the physical body, so that all parts " think "
to a certain extent, just as all parts feel. But the brain is the main centre,
the great junction for the outer world. We may, therefore, visualize the inner
bodies as exercising pressure throughout the physical body, but with the
pressure greatest at the brain junction. The brain bears the brunt
comparatively easily in normal cases and with the ordinary individual, since
only very small channels are in fact allowed to be open between the various
bodies.
But Kundalini will inevitably flow, apart from its normal channels, so as to
vivify those centres which are most sensitive, have greatest receptivity.
Hence the already existing concentration will be considerably intensified,
generally when the organ involved is already bearing a full load. An
individual in whom, for whatever cause, Kundalini tends to stir, is certainly
living at what is to all intents and purposes high pressure. He is likely to be
intensely alive. He is likely to have deep concentrations of force in his
various organs, the concentrations varying in strength according to the use
he makes of one rather than of another. Kundalini may very well be "the last
straw," and hurl the unfortunate individual down into cruel darkness, if he be
not a spiritual athlete trained to bear the strain.
Doubtless there will have come into existence, at this stage of the
evolutionary process, channels between the inner worlds and the individual
mainly Jiving in the outer world. But such channels are not likely to be deep,
and if suddenly a rush of force whirls through one or another of them, or
directly into a physical organ, they may well " burst," and bring about
catastrophe.
When the physical, emotional and mental bodies are beginning to become
resolved into their higher counterparts, as in the case of those who are
concluding human existence so far as imprisonment in it is concerned, then
Kundalini flows naturally and without encountering more than a minimum of
obstruction. There is beginning to be but one Fire, one Life. It is at stages
earlier than this that extreme circumspection is vital, for the Serpent-Fire
does not discriminate. It consumes. It tends to flow along the lines of least
resistance, and sometimes such lines may lead downwards and not upwards,
with indescribably disastrous effect.
As development takes place, and as the higher consciousness gradually
gains permanent ascendancy, the interpenetration becomes more rhythmic,
and the whole of the lower agency responds far more immediately and richly
to higher stimulation.
What then does the awakening of Kundalini effect? To all intents and
purposes it breaks down barriers ; or, to put this in another way, it flings
wide open the sluice gates, which hitherto have been opening slowly and
gradually, and which, in the case of the ordinary individual, are open only to
a very limited extent. There begins to be complete communication between
all the bodies, though the use and interpretation of such communication are
necessarily a matter of some considerable time after the preliminary
communication has been established. The lower bodies begin to reflect in
increasing clarity the characteristics of the higher bodieshigher mental and
lower Buddhic. States of consciousness begin to interpenetrate, so that there
arises a hitherto unexperienced continuity of consciousness. This means
enormously increased sensitiveness throughout all the bodies, demanding
that large measure of self-control, which is so constantly emphasized.
Nowadays, in the case of many, Kundalini must be developed in the marketplaces, where the danger is great, and not in the forests, where the danger
is minimized. Time is too precious for isolation from the world, especially in
these days ; and risks must be run. The whole of the physical body,
becoming a wonderfully sensitive instrument, becoming refined out of all
relation to its surroundings, can easily, therefore, be shaken to pieces as a
result of the impact of coarse and violent vibrations from without. Sturdy
physical health is thus a sine qua non for the arousing of Kundalini, and the
health of an adult rather than that of a youth.
But there is still more. Though the whole of the physical body becomes
enormously more sensitive, the brain has to bear the brunt. Pressure upon
the physical brain is very greatly increased, since the brain is the main
junction between the physical and the inner bodies. Can the brain stand the
pressure? This is, perhaps, the principal question with regard to the arousing
of Kundalini. The answer largely depends upon the extent to which the
physical grey matter is sufficiently developed, steeled and reinforced,
through self-control, to stand the strain. The condition and number of the
spirillae are, perhaps, a determining factor, for these indicate the condition
of the channels of contact and of what seems to be I can think of no other
wordsthe stretching power of the physical matter itself. It must be able to
bend so that it may not break. I do not use the word " bend " literally,
perhaps the word " adapt " would be more accurate. I think of the pressure
from the inner bodies as in the nature of the flow of a fluid, of an almost
irresistible flow. Can the brain shape itself to the flow, yield to it, adapt itself
to it? If so, all may be well. But rigidity is fatal, and by rigidity I mean not
merely, as it were, physical rigidity, but mental and emotional rigidity; that is
to say, a crystallization or hardening of certain parts of the mental and
emotional bodies, which hardening translates itself into the setting up within
the brain, and indeed also within the heart, of grooves which will break but
will not expand.
It is all a very complicated matter, for fundamentally the wisdom of arousing
Kundalini depends largely, though by no means entirely, upon the condition
of the lower mental and emotional bodies, and upon the extent to which the
Causal and Buddhic vehicles are beginning to make contact and assert
themselves. But physical conditions have also to be taken into account,
though these are but reflections of inner conditions. The question then
is: Are the inner bodies adequately developed and controlled, and is the
physical vehicle recovered from such educative misuse as must inevitably
have taken place during the long ages of development? For even though the
physical body changes from life to lire. as generally do the emotional and
lower mental bodies, each new body is moulded to reflect, and to express,
the stage of development reached. It may in fact be a case of the spirit
being willing but the flesh being weak, a case of the Ego being ready but the
lower bodies being weak, for the reason that the physical body in its existing
condition is unable to stand the strain of Kundalini. In such cases, it may be
necessary to wait for another life, so that existing forms may be broken up
and more malleable forms substituted. It is clear from all this how
complicated the process of the awakening of Kundalini really is, and how
foolhardy an individual would be who sought to arouse it without wise
sanction, and without a certain amount of guidance. It is almost certain he
would come to terrible grief. Hence, the brain is a great danger-point, for
disaster will be the result of an overstrained brain. The path of occultism, it
is said, is strewn with wrecks. I venture to think that the path of the
arousing of Kundalini, even if only in the very first stages, is strewn with
even more wrecks.
Chapter 4
entry into the Great Brotherhood (2) is the beginning of the link between the
Kundalini of the individual and that of the Brotherhood as a whole.
It must be remembered that the Great White Lodge is itself an individual, a
specialized individual consciousness, with functions differentiated according
to the various lines of its constituent parts. These differentiated functions
may be regarded as the spiritual counterparts on an exalted scale of the
various centres of the physical body. The mighty force of the Kundalini of the
Brotherhood flows through these centres and through each member, so that
admission to the Brotherhood involves participation in this great flow ; the
gradual uniting of the consciousness of the individual with the consciousness
of the Brotherhood as a whole, involving a progressive uniting of the two
Kundalinis. The Kundalini of the individual begins to enter the stream of the
Brotherhood Kundalini. The converse process has, however, also to take
place the gradual entry of the Brotherhood Kundalini? into the system of
the individual, not merely in a general way, but highly specialized. I wonder
whether, for the sake of accuracy, I ought not to speak of these more
definite stages in the growth of Kundalini as the conscious directing of the
Force, rather than as an " awakening ". Wherever there is life, there is
Kundalini more or less awake, and awakening. But the conscious direction
and handling of its power is another matter altogether.
One of the specially interesting effects of Kundalini is the intensification of
the sense of unity to which its active stimulation gives rise. A breaker down
of barriers between the various layers and states of consciousness, it is also
the breaker of barriers between the individual himself and the larger Self
without. The definite stimulation of Kundalini intensifies, for example, the
individual consciousness of unity with the great consciousness of the
Brotherhood as a whole. Through the operation of the Kundalini power the
separated self begins to lose its illusion of separateness. The consciousness
of the individual member of the Brotherhood is, of course, blended with that
of the Brotherhood by very reason of his membership, but in many ways the
blending is implicit rather than explicit, though explicitness grows with use of
the Brotherhood power. But explicitness is very greatly hastened by the
development of Kundalini, which works like The Theosophical Society in its
First Object, for it bridges all distinctions of plane and consciousness.
Entry into The Theosophical Society very definitely effects a general, though
probably in the vast majority of members no specific, stimulation of
Kundalini. The Kundalini in the individual is definitely stirred, and its intensity
augmented, for The Society, strange as it may seem, is a definite organism,
and has its own mode of Kundalini. In some cases the stimulation proves too
much to bear. The Theosophical Society inevitably attracts a few people who
are somewhat unbalanced, just as it attracts the pioneer and those who
know the nature and purpose of life. But he stands on the lowest rungs of the great Ladder of the Inner
Life, is but a student of government, not a veritable Master in the science.
Chapter 5
During the waking hours this process may be continued, and from time to
time it seems to occur of itself, so that a warm glow passes up the spine,
producing a most interesting effect. A beautiful expansion of consciousness
is physically experienced, so that the individual feels full of a glorious life
and of a sense of intimate contact with what must be the developed intuitive
consciousness. He imagines what life would be like if he could keep this
experience constant, instead of only intermittent. There is a fine sense of atone-ment, of radiance, of contact with the Real. Barriers seem to have been
broken down, so that the individual sees into the heart of things, no matter
what they are, and sees them as growing entities, their glorious future
disclosed to him as embryonic in them. It is so difficult to describe this
condition of consciousness, but the physical, indeed much more than the
physical, seems transcended, and some veils at least are lifted so that he
gazes upon a Real, less hidden by the clouds of illusion.
In the beginnings of this process a certain amount of dizziness is noticeable.
A new constituent has become active. It is as if a new dimension had opened
out, so that a new world is entered. The dizziness is perhaps the physical
expression of a new relativity, of a new adjustment, other worlds than the
physical beginning to be open to a gaze which the individual has not yet
learned to control, so that he looks out as it were with all " eyes " vaguely
open, instead of with those appropriate to the particular plane on which he
happens to be dominantly functioning. Later on he will be able to close the
eyes he does not need, leaving open only those he does. And later on still,
he will be able, perhaps, to use all " eyes " simultaneously, each " eye "
dovetailing into the others, so as to avoid distortion and flickering between
one state of consciousness and anotherthe effect being the dizziness.
Yet another effect, presumably only in the earlier stages, is that of seeming
to be elsewhere. The individual feels as if he were living elsewhere, so that
the outer world seems to be at a distance. He is far away, and the noise and
rush of life come to him only as a faint murmur. He is as a spectator at a
play, and he looks at the players on the stage as denizens of a world other
than his world. This sensation is more or less continuous, and invests the
outer world with a peculiar unreality, the physical expression of which is the
hearing of the world as if muted. It is almost as it he were deaf. He looks out
upon the world as if he had no concern with it. His physical brain is in one
sense numbed, definitely numbed, though at the same time it is
extraordinarily alert to the Real, full of a hitherto unexperienced keenness,
fire, clarity. It is beautifully stimulated. There seem to be momentary flickers
from far-away consciousness, so that a flash of other-consciousness occurs
from time to time, though only shadowy. This flash seems to take place
when there is special warmth at the top of the head, possibly the result of a
little escape of Kundalini Fire.
Chapter 6
SUN-KUNDALINI AND
EARTH-KUNDALINI
OW wonderful a difference the stirring of Kundalini makes as regards
sensitiveness to influence either emanating from a centre or aroused by
activity, as for example in a Church service ! To go into a city is to feel as if
every vital part drooped, as flowers droop for want of air. Under stimulating
influences, such as proximity to a centre of spiritual vitality, to some temples
and churches, or the taking part in ceremonial activities, or in meetings
highly charged with uplifting influences, the centres seem to unfold as a
flower opens to the Sun, and Kundalini glows throughout the body. And this
unfoldment and glow make contact between the lower and higher bodies,
bringing into the lower the influences of the higher. In the beginning of
Downward flows a stream of Fire. And the streams meet at the spine base to
weld as it were into a spear of concentrated Force to travel upward on its
appointed way. 1 think of the beautiful concentration of the mighty Jumna
and the majestic Ganga at Allahabad, whence they flow united down to the
sea from which in very truth they came. So do Earth-Kundalini and SunKundalini meet in the globe at the root of the spine, thence flowing as one
great Force into the Real, upon their surface the individual himself being
carried onward into the Light. The negative Earth and the positive Sun
combine, and spiritual Power is the fruition of the two.
In some ways, of course, this description is very inaccurate. Perhaps the
truth would lie in the suggestion that both negative and positive slumber, as
it is well they should, until both are stirred into life. The negative is no less
valuable than the positive. Each has its part to play, its work to do.
Thus the individual, not merely his physical body but all his bodiesmore
the non-physical bodies than the physical bodybecomes a Rod between the
globes, between Earth and Sun.
At this point the student finds entering into the perspective of his vision the
great triple Fire symbolized in the Caduceus. The Caduceus Fire and that of
Kundalini lie close and together, forming a splendid rainbow of colour. They
subserve the same endsdifferently.
There is intimate connection between the Caduceus formed of the central
line of force and its male and female intertwining aspects and the Fire of
Kundalini. Though from one point of view the two forces are distinct, from
another they are complementary and one might even almost say identical,
being reflections of the Activity facet of the Diamond of Fire.
The Caduceus seems independently awakenable, that is to say, stirred into
conscious usage on the part of the individual. But its relationship with
Kundalini is intimate.
The student whose experiences are here recorded was unable to pursue
further the intricacies of the relationship and respective functionings of the
Caduceus Fire and the Kundalini Fire. But in Theosophical literature these are
examined. All he could see was a stream of Fire, differently-hued, flowing
from the root of the spine up into the head, with subtle connections
maintaining ever open channels between those macrocosmic forces of which
it is a current. It was very easy to confuse the Caduceus force with the force
of Kundalini, for there is an eternal alliance between them ; and the
beginner always tends to perceive sameness before he notices differences.
The student concerned had the distinct impression that while the Fire of the
Chapter 7
general growth ; the other being to leave the positive arousing of Kundalini?
until the last moment, so to speak, and then, when all is safe and the word
of the Master has gone forth, to arouse Kundalini with a rush. This method
has in one sense more of risk in it, but there should not be any if the
individual is alert. I am reminded of the launching of a ship. She goes down,
gradually increasing in speed, into the sea, but only after all details of the
slipway are attended to with most meticulous care. But once she is set going
she quickly takes the plunge. In some cases, this latter method is employed,
in others, the former.
As a setting for the right development of Kundalini, there is always an
extraordinary desire to use the intensified power to help others. There is
often the deliberate turning of oneself into a negative photographic plate, "
exposing " it to those nearby, that their needs may be directly known. This
longing to be of service to others is greatly stimulated, and indeed much
more help can be given, because of the vivified intuition. One even feels
inclined to advise some of one's friends, if they ask, quite frankly as to what
they need, the advice being available because the individual has discerned
so very clearly, with the aid of Kundalini, what he himself needs. He can help
others because he has discovered how to help himself. But discretion and
tact are the better part of valour, and one must not hinder in the effort to be
helpful.
Chapter 8
Bergson's elan vital. But to admit a person to a bath of what may be called
concentrated Kundalini demands care. It might be suitable for an
undeveloped person of an unobjectionable disposition, and also for a
developed person who has already learned to dominate his lower nature.
One of the reasons at any rate why the Elder Brethren are unable to live in
the outer world is the effect upon the average individual of Their supremely
dynamic Kundalini. We know how a wireless station, for example, seems
charged with electricity the air being full of it. Some people are adversely
affected by this electrical atmosphere. Similarly, in far more intense degree,
many people would be even dangerously affected by the physical propinquity
of an Elder Brother dynamic with Kundalini Fire. The world is not yet ready
for such stimulation. Consider the effect the Christ had upon the people
2,000 years ago even though He used the body of a disciple. The Kundalini
Fire in the disciple, inevitably intensified by the immediate presence of the
Christ, fired the people one way or the other, and finally the other. There was
inadequate self-control to stand the strain of the searching penetration of
Kundalini. We have been told that this was anticipated, and that the work
planned was fulfilled when a few disciples became available to transmit the
Christ's Message to future generations. No more was expected from the
people of the time, or perhaps not much more, for it was realized that the
force introduced into their midst would probably be too much for them. Yet,
for the sake of the few who could be inspired to pass on the Message to
unborn generations, the risk of non-acceptance and of the murder of the
physical vehicle of the Lord had to be run. May it not be that the karma of
the Jews is not so heavy as might otherwise be imagined, for they were face
to face with a Force the effects of which even the Love of the Christ Himself
could not neutralize, or should I rather say, turn aside, transmute or veil?
Kundalini Fire is the essence of the Love of God, so that there can be no
question of neutralization, but only of, as it were, protecting the eyes from a
blinding Light. This could not be perfectly done 2,000 years ago.
In this connection, there are a number of complicated considerations into
which I need not enter. One, for example, is the extent to which constant
and immediate contact with crowds has to be avoided, much of the work
being done from centres, rather than in the midst of the people.
The Word of a Saviour thus descends into the future partly through His life in
His disciples, partly through transmission by disciples and through books,
but largely, mainly, through highly charged Kundalini centres, Kundalini thus
concentrating in special areas on the surface of the earth : bathing pools of
Fire, spiritual bathing pools, as they indeed become, as well as centres for
the emanation of the Fire throughout the world.
Chapter 9
greater and Kundalini rises to a great height. All head obstructions vanish,
with the result that contact is made, a channel pierced, between the various
types of consciousness, leading to continuous consciousness and to
constant contact between the various planes and the physical-brain waking
consciousness.
What is the nature of the obstruction at the top of the head ? It has the
appearance of a mass of grains of " sand," yellowish in colour, through which
Kundalini is endeavouring to effect a permanent passage, tearing apart the
mass, making a hole through it, a process of some difficulty, some pain, and
a certain amount of danger. At first, Kundalini only glows. As time passes,
the glow must become a burning nucleus and later a consuming, purifying
and releasing fire. These grains of " sand " presumably are cells, and they
are not so close to one another that Kundalini cannot effect some sort of a
passage, just as water can escape through a sieve.
It is interesting to watch the nature of the process of awakening Kundalini as
it takes place during the sleep of the physical body. The most interesting
observation is as to the density or solidity of Kundalini itself. From one
standpoint, Kundalini is a Fire, liquid Fire, but from another there is an exact
simile in the planting of a long pole in a hole in the ground. The earth has to
be hollowed out and the pole inserted into the hole thus made.
Similarly, in the lower bodies obstruction has to be removed from the course
Kundalini must take obstruction both physical, etheric, and possibly higher
as well; and the picture the student had in his mind's eye as he awoke is of
digging away varying densities of solids so that another kind of solid may
enter the
passage thus cleared. One might well employ the simile of boring into the
earth. In the course of the process earth is encountered, earth and water are
encountered, then perhaps water alone, and if one went far enough down
one would meet molten masses and gases of various kinds. Now boring
upwards has to take place for Kundalini, and the same kinds of obstructions
are encountered, different kinds of solids even though we call them solids,
liquids, gases, and so on. All are solids. Kundalini is a solid, and if it is to do
its work, certain other kinds of solids must be removed out of the way. Not
that it cannot more or less interpenetrate them. It can and does permeate
them to a certain extent. But its main objective cannot be accomplished
unless it has a clear passage, and this involves the removal, perhaps only to
a very small extent, of physical obstruction, possibly a heaping to either
side, just as a crowd has to give way before an oncoming procession. There
is probably partly a burning away and partly this crowding on either side.
radiance indeed to the centres which have special preeminence. And this
principle obtains throughout the evolutionary process, in the vast
macrocosms no less than in the minutest microcosms.
But Kundalini definitely stimulates each centre, whirling as each already is,
throbbing and piercing its way upwards to the great head junction. There
seems to be little doubt that there is a spiral, corkscrew movement of
Kundalini as it surges upwards, concentrating on the centres which are
outstanding because of the individual's Ray(1) and temperament, and
sometimes vivifying certain centres which need special stimulation in view of
certain work the individual has to undertake. Here one centre is stimulated
more than the rest. There another centre is singled out. And perceiving this
one wonders if nations and races, faiths and sects, have their super-ordinate
centre as well as their subordinate centres, so that the Fire of Kundalini has
to be all things to all centres.
One wonders if the same be true of land, of sea, of valley, of mountain, of
forest, of plain. And then comes the speculation as to the supreme Centre of
the Earth. The Earth, as we are told, has its colour, its note. Has it not its
special centre also? This seems to be without doubt, as must also be the
case with the Sun, with a Solar System, in fact with every organism. And
when one tries to follow this speculation with the inner vision one becomes
lost in regions of consciousness which forbid exploration, and one turns back
wisely, though regretfully, into those realms which are, as these others are
not yet, for our conquering.
The burning sensation, so usually associated with Kundalini, and by no
means confined within the channels of its passage through the body, is not
necessarily inevitable. There may be a sensation of cold, of pressure, of a
bursting, the latter generally within the head. Some students have
experienced an uncomfortable warmth throughout the trunk of the body,
with extension into the head, so that the whole of the upper part of the body
seems intensely hot, streaming forth heat in all directions.
But always, and this is an acid test of the rightness of the experience, the
whole body becomes comparatively universalized as to its sensitiveness. The
whole body becomes, as it were, a Gauge of the Real, so that discrimination,
as has been said before, is alive from the feet to the very top of the head
itself. This is a reflection on the physical plane of the absence in the inner
bodies of the localization of faculties which is so apparent in the physical
body itself. There arises, with the vivification of Kundalini, a blending of the
lower with the higher bodies, so that there begins to be one vehicle
receptive and active in every part of its being.
2) The central nucleus of each of man's bodies is a Permanent Atom, so-called because it remains ever
within the periphery of the higher aura, even when the body itself has disintegrated. At rebirth, from this
atom emanates a web-like substance into which the actual atomic particles of the new body are builded.
The use of the permanent atoms is to preserve within themselves, as vibratory powers, the results of all
the experiences through which they have passed. We must not think of the minute space of an atom as
crowded with innumerable vibrating bodies, but of a limited number of bodies, each capable of setting up
innumerable vibrations.
Chapter 10
The student feels he may not suggest either a colour or a note as expressive
of Kundalini, for each of us hears himself differently, sees himself differently,
in this magic crystal of blended colour-sound. Let each listen. Let each see.
It were almost a blasphemy to dim the crystal from its all-embracing purity.
Yet our Kundalini?, the Cosmic Kundalini from our Lord the Sun and the
individual Kundalini from our Mother the Earth, has its note dominant,
different from the notes dominant of other modes of evolution, and is a
blend of the Song of the Sun and the Song of the Earth. Our Lord the Sun
sings His Song for all His universe. Our Mother the Earth sings her answering
note, the note of life unfolding on her bosom. So does our Lord the Sun send
forth His colour, and our Mother the Earth shines, in all her colour, radiance
in answering homage.
How near sometimes the student seems to come to the song of Kundalini
from the Sun, to the colour of it, and to the song of Kundalini from the
Earth, to the colour of it. He sees at once that the Earth is but an image of
the Sun her Father. The song of the Earth, the colour of the Earth, are but
immature shadows of that coming substance perfectly resplendent in the
Sun. He sees that all the singing from the Earth, and all the colourmessages, are but praise to the Lord of all, and from the heights of man in
all his trappings of bodies right down to the humblest atom in the lowest of
nature's kingdoms the student hears a song of praise and colour-throbbings
of aspiration. Our Lord the Sun has set them all afire. He has set them all asinging. He has set them all a-shining in a myriad hues. In their joy, in their
deep consciousness that as He is so shall they be through the mystery of His
Being in colour and in sound, they give to Him that which they have received
from Him. Our Songs, our Colours, our Life, our Light, our Glory, are from
Him, and we lift up our gifts that He may see we cherish them.
Kundalini sings to the student with the voice of all that lives. The student
thus begins to know all life, not by a forthgoing, but by an indrawing. In the
hidden recesses of his own Kundalini, if the possessive be pardoned, he finds
the secret of the Unity of Life, as he has known Life's solidarities without.
There is a Unity, and it sings one song, composed though the song be of an
infinitude of notes. There is a Unity, and it sends forth one colour, composed
though it be of an infinitude of colours. There is but one song, but one
colour, for all life on this Kundalini-Globe we call the Earth. In the Kundalini
we hear the song, we see the colour. And when we are able to make external
that which for so long must remain internal, and remote and inaccessible,
only now and then revealing itself, when at last we are the Unity, then do we
pass beyond the human kingdom, as we have passed beyond the kingdoms
below, and the Kingship of the Matter-World is ours.
Kundalini is indeed vocal. She can be heard by those who have the ears to
hear. She is substantial, even though yet more spatial, and can be seen by
those who have the eyes to see. Kundalini is no mere fanciful abstraction.
She is no mere theory, no mere externalization of an imaginative
outpouring. She lives. She sings. She arrays herself in scintillating colours.
When we seek her within ourselves, and perchance catch a glimpse, be it in
her sleep or in her stirrings, of her compassionate elusiveness, then if our
eyes and ears be but faintly open, we shall see her raiment and hear her
voice. And these shall be our raiment and our voice, not as these are now,
but as these shall be some day. Is it not worth while to seek her, not by
striving to awaken her before her rightful sleep is over, not by disturbing her
if on occasion she sallies forth within the domain which is hers to illumine,
but just by watching, as this student has watched, respectfully, without a
ripple of desire for response?
The way to seek her is to detach oneself from one's anchorages, to break
the bars of all imprisonments of physical body, feelings and emotions, and
mind, and to lose oneself in the formless spaces of Life's infinitudes. It is
needful to " feel" the infinitudes in their limitless natures, not going forth
infinitely far, but being infinitely still. There is no far nor near when perfect
stillness is achieved. Yet the stillness is vocal. It is supremely still because it
is throbbingI wish there were a word to express throbbing to the supreme
degree of imperceptibility with the Song, the Voice, of the Stillness. When
that still, small Voice, infinitely potent by very reason of its small stillness, is
heard, then are we hearing Kundalini afar off, yes; inevitably so. But in
the distant future to be our Voice, our very selves singing for joy.
So, too, in the perfect clarity of the silence, we shall see a warmth because
of its warmth ol colour. Then shall we be seeing Kundalini afar off, yes ;
inevitably so. But in the distant future to be our Colour, our very selves
shining for joy.
Chapter 11
ACCOUNT OF AN EXPERIENCE
an apparent flowing on its surface " back" into the at present undiscoverable
past. Indeed does Kundalini break down barriers, not merely of
consciousness in terms of matter but no less in terms of time. The ridges
between present and past, and present and future, become transcended, at
all events within limits, and the Eternal becomes the Real rather than the
modes of time. The student who was experimenting and experiencing was
more interested in the past than in either present or future, so where
travelling was possible he tended to travel " backwards" rather than
outwards or forwards. Hence the experience which follows.
The student finds himself on a stream of Kundalini, and moves on the
stream towards time's beginnings so far as this particular evolution is
concerned.
He moves back and back and back, until he finds himself strangely immersed
in the majestic profundities of the opening of a new era of life.
He looks about him, though who exactly this " he " is he does not know,
largely because he does not careit is that at which he is looking that
absorbs him.
He sees before himhow entirely inadequate are descriptions which must
needs be couched in small physical terminologiesa vast expanse of
substance. Matter is not the right word at all, nor even is substance. The
word Sea would be better if it did not so forcibly connote liquid. The
sentence might
well have read " a vast expanse of Fire," but there is inadequacy in this also.
At any rate there is a vast expanse, the nature of which is that it is known
and therefore has within it the potentiality of knowing. Whether this
sentence is intelligible or not is, perhaps, doubtful. But the dominant
characteristic of the expanse is the fact that it is being known all the time,
and that in such knowledge lies the fact of its own potency to know.
Being known, there is involved a Knower. And the student immediately
conceives the principle that at the dawn of an evolutionary unfoldment there
are two elementsa Known and a Knower. There is an infinitude of Known,
and a Knower who in Himself sums up the apotheosis of the evolutionary
process to which He belonged. He is a God and more than a God. He is a
Sun.
The student perceives that by very reason of the Knower it might be
postulated of the Known that it consists of an infinitude of Knowers in their
becoming.